Hi Jonathan,

 PK>> Then the "issue" over the visibility and ordering of
 PK>> primary/logical partitions goes away completely...

 JdBP>> Actually, no it doesn't go away.  It is just renamed in the hope
 JdBP>> that  everyone will overlook it. (Amazingly, this actually seems 
 JdBP>> to happen.  (-:)  What on "PC style" operating systems is an issue 
 JdBP>> of drive letter assignment order is, on PC unices, an issue of the
 JdBP>> assignment order of device numbers.  One still has to change things. 

 PK> Try as I might, I can't see your logic here. 

 JdBP> The fundamental problem being addressed, which I don't want to lose 
 JdBP> sight of, is that when one creates or deletes partitions the assignment 

 JdBP> of drive letters changes.  The scheme that you have 
 JdBP> suggested doesn't actually fix this problem, it simply renames it. 

I think I see what you are talking about, but that is because you are taking
MY literal mention of mounting the partitions similar to unix much too close.
Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned unix.......;-) 

My "similar to unix" layout meant that the PHYSICAL partition appears under
the root using a unique partition name to ensure that the dynamic "DEVICE
naming" of the unix environment never plays a part in the partition addressing 
exercise. 

The issue of partition order goes away, completely, and partitions that are
removed or added are done so in a manner which does not affect any other
partition in the system.


 JdBP> Worse, there's no way to automate this process.

Of course it can be automated if you want to. What is preventing it from being 
automated? If the computer can recognise that a partition uses a specific
FORMAT, load the appropriate driver for that, work out the VOLUME LABEL and
assign a drive letter, why can in not recognise WHAT the partition IS and
WHERE it should be mounted?

You have to bring the partition recognition phase back into control, none of
this "automatic" ordering that currently happens. Its the automatic phase that 
is causing all the problems for people.

 JdBP> Doing away with drive letters and replacing them with 
 JdBP> a mount table does not, in fact, fix the problem that 
 JdBP> requires fixing, which is minimising the impact of 
 JdBP> changing the partition table on system configuration. 

Of course it does! Regardless of adding/removing partitions the existing
partitions are ALWAYS mounted at exactly the same place. If a partition that
was configured on a system is "destroyed" by some other event, then upon
system restart that partition is simply found so it is not mounted.


 JdBP> Does that make it clearer ?

Nope...........;-) I must be missing something here because so far I can see
what appear to me to be fairly obvious answers to all the "issues" you
mention. Maybe there is something about partitions that I AM missing and why I 
can't see why you keep returning to "computer assigned" drive letters or
numbers, but I am not sure exactly what that could be at the moment.

Cheers...........pk.


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